Developing parental engagement in low-income communities
Event Overview:
- Prize Category: Innovation
- Format: Panel discussion
- Country: India
- Languages: Streamed live in English with automated captions in Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Filipino, Malay, Serbian and Hindi.
- Learn more about the Top Ten Shortlisted Schools in the Innovation category on the World’s Best School Prizes website.
Watch on-demand
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About the school
MCD Co-ed Primary School Lajpat Nagar III, a primary government school in New Delhi, serves some of the poorest communities in the city. With monthly incomes of under $80, private education is unaffordable and public schools are the only chance for students to receive a quality education. But financial pressures often meant students had to drop out of school to support their families. MCD Co-ed Primary School Lajpat Nagar III is turning this around. In a typical government school in India, reports show 50% of students from grade 5 cannot read a simple grade 2 text. However, in MCD Co-ed Primary School Lajpat Nagar III, 85% of the students meet or exceed grade-level expectations. Its interventions have seen school enrolment rocket from just nine in 2015 to over 500 today.
The school works closely with parents so they can see first-hand the value of quality education and dispel the stereotype that government school education is inadequate. The school also ensures that first-generation school students can succeed.
This was achieved through a package of interventions to boost enrolment and attainment and engage parents. The school gently encourages parents to enrol their children and it holds visit days for parents to see how students learn. The school works closely with parents to arrange a suitable time and date so that they do not lose out on any wage-earning hours. The school allows parents to observe classrooms, orients them on school values, conducts frequent community visits and other community-based workshops. Interventions like this ensured that parents could see the value in the education their children are receiving and be appropriately engaged with their children’s learning.
The school has invested in rigorous teacher training, including to support activity-based learning, and has significantly boosted attainment. MCD Co-ed Primary School Lajpat Nagar III exhibits the values of respect, exploration, achievement, courage and honesty. It promotes inclusivity and equity in learning among a diverse student body.
Join us for a lively panel discussion and learn about the innovations implemented at the school.
Speakers
Moderator: Ritu Tokas
Ritu started her career at peepul by contributing as a lead teacher for students in Grade 4 and 5 for three years in MCD Co-ed Primary School, Lajpat Nagar 3 leading to then work on the English curriculum for the Reach and Teach programme dedicated to overcoming learning loss, especially during the pandemic. She Supported the Academic Coordinators in planning a learning framework for the Reach and Teach programme that covered all important Foundational Literacy and Numeracy concepts. Given her expertise in working in schools , she is now supporting the scale programmes by developing School Leader Handbook and Teacher Handbook with comprehensive SOPs on key processes, policies and information needed to set up robust academic and administrative processes in CM Rise schools. And building an Academic Support and Monitoring Unit for schools working with Peepul at scale. She is also part of the pioneering team who has worked on structuring monitoring systems for 275 scale schools.
Speaker 1: Urmila Chowdhury
Urmila is an educationist with over 30+ years of experience in education. She has developed curricula, written school textbooks, and worked extensively on teacher development in her extensive career.
As the Education Director for the public-private partnership model at the SDMC Primary school Lajpat Nagar III, Urmila leads the education and academic team, providing strategic guidance to the school. Before this, she taught for twenty years in two of India’s most prestigious schools – La Martiniere, Kolkata and The Shri Ram School, New Delhi. At The Shri Ram School, she was a teacher for 15 years and a school leader for five years.
Speaker 2: Deepali
Deepali is a Primary years facilitator with 13 years of experience in the education sector. She has been working in Municipal Corporation for the last 7 years. She is a Post Graduate and has been trained in Teaching Methodology by SCERT. She is also certified from CENTA. She has an innate interest in the fundamental development of children and loves to spend most of her time among kids. She is a passionate storyteller and invests her efforts in helping young learners to assimilate concepts for life by scaffolding the understanding to their root level.
Speaker 3: Priti Vats
Priti Vats has been working with Peepul since July 2017. She has more than 11 years of experience in Education. Previously she has worked as a School Coordinator with an Edutech Startup, her area of work there was to Promote and execute experiential learning through STEM Education and Robotics & maintain relationship with the client schools, her previous experience also Includes Working as an ECCE & Diploma in Primary Education Faculty, her primary subject area was Methods of Teaching, Education, and Art and Craft, She was also the head In charge of Examination for the ECCE Department, She has also worked as Maths Instructor at Kumon- a Japanese MNC specialized in after school classes for Maths and English Reading, her primary area of work there was Conducting Maths classes and taking baselines, Previously she also has worked as a Primary Maths and Science Teacher.
Her role in Peepul majorly includes maintaining, quality and achieving targets of Key Performance Indicators i.e ATTENDANCE, ENROLMENT, ASSESSMENT, BEHAVIOUR OF THE CHILDREN across three Peepul exemplar schools. Supprt and improved quality in Teaching and learning, Providing continuous support/feedback to teachers and Academic coordinators Priti has completed her Masters in Commerce (M Com), along with a Bachelors in education degree with distinction.